The mysterious and much-loved tales of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Evelyn Thorndyke revolutionised the field of criminal investigation, a Manchester University historian has revealed.
Edmond Locard and Hans Gross are regarded by many as the fathers of crime scene investigation and used the tales of Detective Holmes and Dr Thorndyke to launch their very own CSI teams in the 1920s.
Dr Ian Burney, based at the History of Science, Technology and Medicine centre, researched the history of CSI and revealed that the novels led to the creation of a complex police and scientific operation with photographers and policemen to search and protect the scene.
He said: “The stories showcased new methods of CSI: protecting the crime scene from contamination, preserving and recording the relationships between all objects in the scene, even the most trivial and submitting minute trace evidence to scientific scrutiny.
“It’s surprising but clear that the fictional creations of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Thorndyke were a major influence on the crime scene as we know today.”
He spoke at the 24th International Congress of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, and argued that both Arthur Conan Doyle and R. Austin Freeman created characters whose attention to the smallest details of a scene eventually led to the resolution of a case – a major influence in how CSI teams were developed.
Locard repeatedly urged his students of police science to read and absorb the lessons of the famous Sherlock Holmes novels.
This taught the students that scrutinising every detail can be the difference in solving a case and has led to better and more precise procedures of CSI.
The practise of modern CSI is relatively similar to the practice constructed by the imagination of Doyle and Freeman as analysing the whole crime scene correctly is still vital in solving a case.
Image courtesy of Boston Public Library via Flickr, with thanks.
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